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Original Article
Analysis and characterization of Tensile and Compressive Properties of the
Chopped Strand Mat E-Glass Fiber Reinforced Epoxy Composites
Sudhir S Mathapati1, M.Tech scholar, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Gogte Institute of Technology, Belgaum.
TusharT. Hawal2, Faculty, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Gogte Institute of Technology, Belgaum.
PrashantP. Kakamari3, Faculty, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Gogte Institute of Technology, Belgaum.
Nikhil R. 4, Faculty, Department of Industrial and Production Engineering, Gogte Institute of Technology, Belgaum.
Corresponding Author Email: sudhirmathapati@gmail.com
Received 02 July 2014; accepted 14 July 2014
Abstract
The greatest advantage of composite materials is strength and stiffness together with light weight. By choosing an
appropriate combination of matrix material and reinforcement, manufacturers can produce a property that exactly matches
the requirements for a particular structure for a particular purpose. The present works aims to prepare E-glass fiber
reinforced composite with variation in volume fraction of glass fiber content like 1%, 2% and 3% with Bisphenol A as
matrix material. Tensile and compression tests are conducted on the prepared composite. As a final point of view, the
experimental results are compared with the FEA results by using analysis software like ANSYS.
2014 Universal Research Publications. All rights reserved
Key words: Epoxy, E-glass fiber, Composite, FEA, ANSYS, Tensile test, Compression test.
compounds have been identified. Some cosmetics and soft
1. Introduction
Composite materials are an important class of materials plastic toys contain one or more phthalates a group of
which are now available to mankind in large quantity. In chemicals that interfere with testosterone and have been
recent years, many glass fiber-reinforced composite shown to lead to infertility and cancer.
materials are widely used in the aerospace and automotive 2.2 Selection of reinforcement material
industries. Composite materials are important for The Literature survey indicates that very limited work has
mechanical, chemical and civil engineers, material been done on the E-glass fiber reinforced epoxy composite.
scientists for using them on a large amount of engineering E-glass fibers were purchased from Binani Goa glass fiber
and other applications [1]. The technological development company, Mumbai. Glass fibers are readily produced from
has increased on advances in the materials field.A raw materials, which are now available in unlimited supply.
composite material is one, which consists of at least two Binani Chopped Strand Mat is made of randomly, yet
materials working together to produce new material with evenly distributed strands, chopped from continuous Eproperties that are dissimilar to the properties of individual glass fibers into 50 mm length, bonded with emulsion
material that they possess. It contains the most important binder contains better surface bonding efficiency.
characteristic that the materials are not soluble to each 2.3 Methods of preparing the composite material
other [2]. Most composites are made up by using more The raw materials used in this work are,
than one material [4]. Most of the commonly used
1) Matrix material
composite materials have a large phase, which is
2) E glass fiber (chopped strand mat)
continuous, called as the matrix, and one distributed, on3) Hardener
continuous phase called as the reinforcement, which is The fabrication of the composites is carried out by the hand
typically stronger and harder [5].Reinforcements are added lay-up technique. Composites of three different volume
primarily to improve the stiffness and strength of the matrix fraction variations such as1%, 2% and 3% of glass fiber are
and are usually available in the fiber form [7].
made. The matrix material was weighed to the required
quantity and catalyst, accelerator, hardener and glass fiber
2. Materials and processing methods
were added to the matrix material. Proper mixing was done
2.1 Selection of matrix material
Bisphenol A, more commonly known as BPA, is a using a mechanical stirrer. The glass fibers are randomly
chemical widely used to make polycarbonate plastics and oriented in the matrix. The mixture was then allowed to
epoxy resins.BPA is hardly the only chemical to be settle for some time to reduce the air bubbles. A releasing
identified as an "endocrine disrupter. More than 50 such agent was sprayed on the surface of the aluminum mould
Advanced Engineering and Applied Sciences: An International Journal 2014; 4(3): 29-33
29
and the mixture was then poured in it. Maximum care has
been taken to maintain uniformity and homogeneity of the
composite. The prepared composites slabs were cured at
room temperature for 24 hours before they were removed
from the mould. These slabs were then post cured in the air
for another 24 hours after removing out from the mould.
Specimens of suitable dimensions as per the ASTM
standards are cut using an electrically operated cutter for
mechanical testing. Tabs of the same parent material were
cut and were bound to the test specimen using the
commercially available adhesive. At least three test
specimens for each variant of the volume fraction (1%, 2%
and 3% of glass fiber) were prepared.
3. Experimental setup and conducting the test
3.1 Tensile and Compression Test
Tensile tests provide information about the tensile
properties of composites when engaged under the loading
conditions similar to those under which the tests are
made.The test specimens are prepared as per ASTM D
3039 [9] standard, as shown in figure1.
a)
b)
Fig 1 Specimens for tensile test, a) without tab. b) with tab
The universal testing machine set-up chosen has maximum
1A
1B
1C
MEAN
2A
2B
2C
MEAN
3A
3B
3C
MEAN
Load
(kN)
1.36
1.32
1.18
1.28
1.04
0.94
0.92
0.96
1.24
2.04
1.74
1.67
30
Deformation
(mm)
7.98
7.23
6.3
7.17
7.62
7.24
6.76
7.20
7.66
8.60
7.81
8.02
Load
(kN)
13.86
12.12
12.76
12.91
12.22
16.22
17.46
15.3
16.56
15.10
16.48
16.04
Compression
Deformation
(mm)
2.22
1.86
2.10
2.06
2.06
2.32
2.48
2.42
2.98
3.04
3.16
3.06
Advanced Engineering and Applied Sciences: An International Journal 2014; 4(3): 29-33
31
6.2 Compression
Table 3 shows the values of experimental deformation and
FEA deformation. It was observed that the experimental
deformation was slightly more than the deformation shown
by the ANSYS.
Advanced Engineering and Applied Sciences: An International Journal 2014; 4(3): 29-33
Load (kN)
Deflection from
Experimental, mm
1.28
0.96
1.67
1.20
7.17
7.20
8.02
7.88
8.02
6.151
10.70
9.58
Error between
Experimental and
FEA in mm
0.85
-1.05
2.68
1.7
Load (kN)
Deflection from
Experimental, mm
1%
2%
3%
Pure epoxy
12.91
15.3
16.04
19.05
2.06
2.42
3.06
8.86
Pure epoxy
1%
2%
3%
Tensile
18.66
34.13
25.60
44.53
66.29
80.04
94.86
99.44
Compressive
Error between
Experimental
and FEA in mm
0.07
0.06
0.6
0.78
32
Advanced Engineering and Applied Sciences: An International Journal 2014; 4(3): 29-33
7. Conclusions
The characterization of mechanical properties of the
composite reinforced with E-glass fiber, reinforced epoxy
composites is reported and the results are summarized as
follows. The E-glass fiber reinforced epoxy has high
ultimate tensile strength and high improvement in the
ultimate tensile strength at 3% volume fraction of the glass
fiber. Elongation increases with the increasing volume
fraction of Glass fiber. The compressive strength of the
composite shows the same behavior with the 3% volume
fraction glass fiber reinforcement yielding the highest
results. The tensile fracture occurred near the tabbing zone
for most of the specimens. The results obtained
experimentally were compared with the simulation in
ANSYS software. The experimental values and ANSYS
values match reasonably validating the experimental
results.
Bibliography
1. Dr. P. K. Palani, M. N andakumar: Analysis Of
Mechanical Properties Of Chopped Strand Mat EGlass Fiber Epoxy Resin Nanoclay Composites,
Volume2, Issue 2, Pages 185-189 2013.
2. X. Huang, X. Yu, C. Wang, G. Li, Y. Song, K. Lu, E.
Niu, C. Gung, N. Clayton, and M. Su, Interlaminar
Shear Strength Property of the Glass Fiber/Polyimide
Reinforced Epoxy Resin for ITER Feeder Mock-ups,
vol. 24, no. 3, june 2014.
33
Advanced Engineering and Applied Sciences: An International Journal 2014; 4(3): 29-33